So proud to hear that Stephany Flores-Ramos '17 was awarded the Kauffman fellowship this year, providing funding for her to join a research lab this summer, hopefully in her home state at the University of Hawaii, before starting her thesis in the lab next year, and Anna Rasmussen '13 was awarded a very competitive NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! These are such well-deserved honors that go to truly dedicated scientists and wonderful people! So, so proud of my awesome women in STEM students!

Graduation time is always bittersweet -- Franny graduated in May of 2015 and will start at MIT in the fall, and Mariame spent a few extra weeks in the lab wrapping up some experiments before leaving for the NIH. But it is also a time of new beginnings… Stephany is off and running in the lab and having tremendous luck with ligations!

The paper describing the CrbRS two component system and its effect in the fly -- work begun by Alix as a postdoctoral fellow with Paula Watnick at Boston Children's Hospital, and really spearheaded by Saiyu Hang and others in the Watnick Lab -- is out in Cell Host Microbe. There's also a nice write-up in Nature Reviews Microbiology. Great job everyone!